Tea and Crumpets
by Nemrith
Summary: A young Chell is brought to Aperature Science for the annual 'bring your daughter to work day'. Chell OC, and Chell -Caroline. Maybe some Personality Cores, it's not settled yet. It is a bit wordy for the younger kids, BYOD  bring your own dictionary.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Abandonment

" Chell, I've got to get back to work, so I'm going to leave you here. Try to stay out of trouble." Caroline said with thinly veiled contempt, as she left the room and sealed the door behind her.

Chell wordlessly reached after Caroline, feeling a deep sense of abject abandonment as her mother left her there. The room had four gray walls, a cube, and a pressure plate, with another door at the end of a tunnel, one just the right size for 7 year old Chell. She shrugged off the abandonment and solved the puzzle, knowing that it would only help with her separation anxiety temporarily. She'd developed a process for staving it off. At least when she was here, the familiar walls were friends. The cubes simple, the puzzles, while physically harrowing at times, took her mind off of her mother's rejection.

" After solving the puzzle proceed down the hallway, because you solved it that door is now open." A dead emotionless computerized voice told her from a speaker somewhere behind the audio neutral wall.

She proceeded through the set of doors, which sealed behind her. There was no going back, but she'd already known that. This wasn't the first time she'd been taken to 'take your daughter to work day', in fact it was the 3rd time so far. Another puzzle was presented to her. This one another cube, but two pads, there were a pair of platforms for her to climb up, on one was a tea set, with some gray earl tea quickly cooling. The other platform held the second cube.

_I wonder if the other kids get this treatment. She acts like I'm an accident, like she hates me, but then these days come once a year. I never see the other children. But sometimes I find notes from the other children. They don't get tea, but I do. I do._

Chell solved this puzzle too, letting her hand rest a moment longer on the last cube, it had a heart painted on each side. _Why am I doing this?_

In the next room was another puzzle, and some disgusting water. _I don't know how to swim_.

She saw cameras in this room, but she had no way to make them stop watching... yet. The course was mostly designed for the agile, who had to land lightly on the platforms spanning the water, either jump onwards before the platform sunk beneath the murk, or before they shifted outside her jump range.

After a couple of near soaks in the water, Chell had made it to the cube, and now had to plot her course carefully back over to the button that it naturally would rest on. Something the computer didn't tell her, but she later found out, was that these cubes, while heavy enough to depress the button, doubled as flotation devices. Which left Chell wondering, _Does everyone get a cube that doubles as a floatie?_ The murky water had no answers for her. But after crossing the remaining span of the water on the cube, she took it from the water, and brushed it off before placing it on the button.

A door back where the cube had been found opened up, the platforms moved into a line forming a bridge to the door. _What's that sound? _Chell thought to herself as she neared the open door. The sound of muted weeping growing louder and louder as she continued onwards.

" Hello?" Chell said hesitantly into the poorly lit room, the motion activated lights hadn't yet come on. Or if there was another person within, they hadn't moved enough to keep the lights on.

The crying died down to a muted sobbing, and a single light came on to reveal a small form laying on the ground, it reminded Chell of a creature found in a game she sometimes played when Caroline worked late hours at the Laboratories.

" Hello, are you hurt?" Chell said, careful not to activate any of the lights close to the sobbing heap, reminded vividly what had happened when any of the people she sometimes played with shined a light upon it.

" Who...who's there? You aren't like the voice from the wall." It said.

" I'm Chell, my moth... Caroline left me here. It's bring your daughter to work day." Chell said, biting back her declaration that Caroline was her mother, Caroline HATED being referred to that way. And sometimes had appeared to know that Chell had called her that even when she hadn't been around.

" That's what my mommy said, she said that I'd get to see what she was working on. Then I got left here, in the dark, it got so dark." The person said, peering out into the darkness, her eyes passing over Chell in the dark.

" The lights turn on when you move, you probably just waited too long and they shut off." Chell explained, moving and activating the light directly over her by gesturing with her hands. _She's not like that creature in the game, she talks instead of screams._

" Waited too long to do what?" the girl asked, meeting Chells eyes.

" To finish the test, the lights come on so you can see what to do, you finish the test, and then at the end, sometimes you get a treat." Chell explained, walking about the room it light it. It seemed as though the poor girl hadn't even made it from her starting area. The room was plain, a hallway leading to the next, much like Chell's starting room.

" But, what test? What am I supposed to do? Mommy just put me here, and told me to be good, which usually means don't break anything." the girl said with a frown still on her face, and her eyes still puffed up from the crying.

" I'll show you... say, what's you're name?" Chell asked, remembering with some unease that she hadn't asked for the sobbing girl's name.

" My name is ... Mohs, mommy said that it was an... an... anaglam?" Mohs said, sniffling, and her voice catching when she tried to pronounce the word.

" An anagram? For what?" Chell asked, getting distracted by the trivial information that Mohs offered.

" Some thing about being difficult, the doctors wouldn't let her name me Ohms, so she decided on Mohs." Mohs said conversationally, her voice leveling out as her distress visibly tapered off.

" Well Mohs, if there's anything I've learned while stuck in these rooms, is that it's never over until 'they' say it's over." Chell said, her arm sweeping to encompass some unseen multitude.

" I guess it won't be as bad as having to do whatever we're doing alone." Mohs said, following Chell from her starting room.

Reader's Note: I know that this isn't exactly in keeping with the 1k+ rule I've self inflicted upon myself, but I can't do that kind of quantity of story generation whilst attempting to keep up with my school work. I tried it in November, and it just didn't happen... At all. I hope you enjoy my foray into the Portal Fandom, and will be at least mildly interested in the other stories I write. I'm not sure when my next chapter update for this will be, I'm trying to work it into the schedule with my other stories.(If you check my profile I have a three month outline of works I'm attempting to complete.)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Together

The first room was the same as Chell's first, she instructed Mohs on what she needed to do. Which was quite simply move the block from its resting place on the ground, to the pressure plate. It was quite tedious, watching the poor girl struggle with the simplicity of the puzzle.

" Is that all?" Mohs asked skeptically.

" Set it down on the Button and you'll see." Chell said with pretended patience.

As Mohs set the cube down, Chell was surprised to see confetti and ribbons rain down on the small figure at her success. There was no music, but it was more than Chell had gotten the first time she'd gotten placed in the maze of puzzle rooms. _I was right, they don't treat us all the same. But it doesn't make sense. There's no pattern to follow._

They proceeded to the next room, which was another water puzzle. The puzzle looked like it was in another level of difficulty altogether. There were two pressure plates, and a trapdoor box release housed in the ceiling. _But how to get at it?_

" I guess it's hopeless. No boxes and two buttons. We could stand on the buttons, but how would we get through the doors then?" Mohs said despondently.

" I wonder how many of the boxes will drop... Mohs, go over and catch the box that drops, and place it on the far button. You okay for hopping over?" Chell asked her.

" I know how to swim, but I'm not too good at jumping." Mohs said quietly, her hair falling in front of her face.

" If you want you can stand on this button when I get over there and I'll catch the box." Chell offered.

" That sounds like a good idea." Mohs agreed with a weak cheerful smile.

Chell hopped across the platforms which were spaced closer together. _Maybe they meant it for her? But two buttons?_ She waved at Mohs, indicating that she was ready for the door to open. Mohs stepped on the button, it caught a little before completely depressing and releasing the trapdoor. As they fell, Chell caught one of the boxes and deflected the second that fell on the button nearest to her. The door at the far end of the room opened briefly, closing once Mohs stepped off her platform towards it. Ignoring the path provided by the platforms, she swam through the murky water to the door.

" It won't open back up until I place this box on the button you just left!" Chell shouted, hoping she wasn't too focused on just moving on.

" I know, but you're always first through the door, it's my turn this time!" Mohs shouted back, her wet hair dripping, the only sound in the room save the water disturbed by her passing through it.

_The computer told me that we needed to stick together, did she hear different instructions?_ Chell thought to herself. When they'd gone through the passage before this room, they'd been instructed to go down different passages, guaranteed that they would be reunited in the next room. Chell's path had been winding and long, but she hadn't bothered to ask Mohs if hers was the same. Until now, she assumed that they'd both had similar paths, which lead to similar locations in this room.

Once the box was on the button the door opened again, and Mohs dove through, regardless of Chell's calls for them to stay together.

Chell ran after her. Not knowing what this increasingly unusual 'Bring your daughter to work' day would have in store for them. _I don't want to be alone again._ The thought occurred to her as the little girl disappeared from her line of sight. She heard a scream which was abruptly cut off. The flat computer voice began as she passed through the doorway, the lights coming on, and the door shutting behind her.

" You will not look for that girl." It said.

_It's never talked to me before. What's going on?_ Thoughts raced through Chell's mind. Each one more terrifying than the rest, before she settled on opposing the voice.

" NO." She said.

" It does not really matter what you decide. She is gone, that is all. It was a mistake letting you two meet." The voice said, as flat as it seemed, whatever was talking to her was not the voice of the computer that droned on about testing and cake. It was a human talking through the computer.

" NO." She repeated stubbornly.

" You will continue testing, the next chamber is ready for you when you're done throwing your tantrum." They said.

_This isn't over. _

Reader's Note: Sorry for the HUGE delay, this isn't exactly high on my priorities list, Sadly. While I am trying to expand my story repertoire (spell check me?) I can't put out more than about 1500-1750 words per week with my current non-writing workload.


End file.
